president obama and mitt romney will square off in their first presidential debate. dagen: peter barnes is in denver where the opponents will go toe-to-toe. hey peter. peter: hey dagen and connell. listen, mitt romney hopes these depates will help -- debates will help him overtake president obama and pull ahead here and use these debates to try to close the race with the american people. the new poll shows the race tightening, 49% for obama, 46% for romney, among likely voters, within the margin of error. there's a lot of debate over whether these debates can make a difference in these elections. looking in history, they have in in the past. in 1960 they helped john kennedy overtake richard nixon. 1980 helped reagan over take carter. 2000 helped bush overtake gore. romney was behind in 02 race for governor in massachusetts, he was trailing badly six weeks before the election. the campaign reorganized, romney pulled his advisors together. they decided on a new strategy which was to get tough and get specific and romney went on to win that 2002 race for governor in mas